The Only Truth That Sticks
by tielan
Summary: Distrust is their only defence against betrayal; they're not that good at it, anyway.


**NOTES**: Written for a rarepairings challenge, to the prompts _a reluctant truce, can't get enough, Toren_. You've been warned; this is a pretty dark story.

**--**

**The Only Truth That Sticks**

_"We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal. "_  
-- Tennessee Williams --

One betrayal is all it takes.

The drones' weapons nudge his back as he paces through the corridor, cursing his luck. Another moment and he would have made the jump, but her touch froze his mind and his fingers fumbled with his controls.

Now he is captured and caught, and the sting of his human taint stains him as he is escorted through the hiveship to see the Queen. The male leading him along the passage glances back, and the Wraith who became Michael tastes his distaste...and his envy.

Even as he frowns at the confusing scent, they reach the Queen's control room and the doors slide open.

He is marched inside without ceremony, prodded to his knees before the dais, and the wide pale skirts shift as she stands. "Michael."

Prepared for the invasion into his mind, that one word shocks him, leaves him open for the moment she needs to seize his thoughts in a grip like fire and ice.

_Where is my son?_

--

Give credit where credit is due.

Kanaan of Athos proved a more dangerous tool than Michael ever thought. He should have known better than to try to twist lover into the jailer; it proved the undoing of his plans.

Teyla should have known better than to leave lover and son unprotected. Kanaan of Athos is missing, and his son with him - Teyla's son.

The efforts of Atlantis to find them came to nothing, so Teyla embarked on this journey alone, as a Queen, without her team-mates.

It is as a Queen that she stands before Michael - unmistakeably Wraith as he was once unmistakeably human, but it is as a human that she paces, frets, grieves - just as he once hungered as a Wraith, not a human. No Queen ever yearned for her 'children' as Teyla of Athos yearns for her son.

Unexpected as this is, he can use it to his own ends.

Michael watches as she ascends the stairs to her throne, reptilian grace in the sweep of her skirts, in the crisp lightness of her steps.

"What do you offer me in return for finding him?"

Her head turns, and within his soul, his spirit quivers in dread. In spite of his taint, he is still Wraith; and Teyla is Queen - the glory and the terror of the hive.

"Your life."

--

"You must know he is most likely dead."

"He is not." Her voice is certain, without doubt. "I would know it."

Michael does not ask if she speaks of son or lover; where the one is, the other will be, also.

He moves around the back of her dais, watching the drones watch him, thinking she will turn to keep him in sight as humans do. But she lets him pace behind her and never turns her head, aware of his presence and dismissive of it, as a Queen should be.

Interesting.

"The mind of the hive?"

"The instincts of a mother," Teyla says, chillingly. "And you have not yet indicated where we will start our search."

In the timbre of her voice lies a command. _Tell me._ Before the will of a Queen, a Wraith male usually submits. But Michael is no longer a Wraith male. He is more - just as she is more - and he holds out as long as his will can stand. It is not defiance so much as a test for himself. How long before in-bred instinct overcomes bitter independence?

Long enough.

"I have...information...about many planets at my base," he says at last, the words drawn from him. "We will start from there."

As he inputs the co-ordinates of one of his bases - a minor one, naturally - his thoughts bleed easily into the mind and matrix of the hiveship, leaking his secrets, revealing his shadows.

His gaze rises to where she sits, watching him with a smile on her lips, and the Wraith known as Michael drags back his thoughts, determined to keep his secrets.

There is a deeper game to be played here, if he can only resist her.

--

Michael pauses as the doors of her chamber slide back. For an instant, he has the impression of polished wood and stained glass, and then he is in Atlantis, in a room he never saw but which he recognises all the same. "You called?"

She turns, slowly, and the candlelight gleams gold off her skin, off her hair, flares darkly in her eyes. "I have need of your services, Michael."

Her fingers tug at the nape of her dress, her hands unbind the cloth from her body, and the material falls about her ankles, pale white linen against the warm brown of her skin.

His belly clenches at the sight of her, his breath rises and hitches, along with a hungry ache that no Wraith ever felt. Fire ignites in his mind, in his body, a yearning he can't control. He steps into the room, crossing over to her, his hands outstretched, and when his hands find her skin, his fingers are flesh and blood and bone and human.

Mouth meets mouth, wet and warm with a human hunger. He shudders against her lips as her left hand strips away the tunic with one sharp yank and her hand presses against his chest. For a moment, he stills, terrified of being taken, of being drained dry - and then her palm slides down his belly and fastens around firm flesh.

Desire is a terrifying thing, a hunger for which he felt the faintest of pangs when he was Michael Kenmore, a need which he experienced second-hand through the mind of Kanaan of Athos when he lay with Teyla, but presently a craving that demands satiation, physicality, _experience_.

Michael wants this, wants to know what the humans crave, wants to be a part of something greater, darker - a part of her, in her, swallowed up in her body as the Queen swallows the minds of her hives. She is the equal of any Queen of their kind: beautiful, terrible, ruthless.

Devotion stirs, more insidious than human desire.

She guides him through it, her mind overlapping his as his mouth fastens on her skin, as his hands skim her body, as her hands feed his flesh's fire.

In his dreams, Teyla rides him through a storm of flesh and spirit.

--

Nothing changes between them. Teyla is still the Queen; Michael is still just a male.

Still, the air of the hive contains subtle shifts, and the drones move more crisply to his commands, while the other males turn their heads to acknowledge his passing.

Power is an old hunger, familiar and friendly.

Teyla is sitting on the dais, staring into space when Michael brings her news. Her back is rigid, without any human softening as she looks upon him. What happens in the dreaming state has not changed her distrust of him, any more than it has changed how he looks upon her - a tool in his plans.

"We will be in orbit around the planet within the next day."

Her eyes fix on him. "How long will it take you to determine where he is?"

"A day, perhaps two." Michael watches her chin sink in the listening stillness of a Queen, the hive's multiplicitous mental chorus humming in her ears. "You realise he may not be on any of the planets I have set watch upon?"

"Yes. But I trust your resourcefulness." A faint smile glitters on her lips.

"Even if you do not trust me?"

Teyla makes no answer. Instead, her eyes go elsewhere, fixing on a time and a place where Michael cannot follow.

Or perhaps he can.

She sees her son, the child whose life is Michael's doing, whose existence threatens all Pegasus. Does she realise it would have been better to have killed the child at birth than leave him lying about, a weapon to be used? Perhaps the human Teyla denied it; the Queen would understand expediency.

She would see her friends, the people who included her among them as though she was one of them, a warrior rather than a Queen. Did they know what lurked within her, the darkness and the danger that stood sharp and silent in their midst? Michael looks at the planes of her face and the inexorable line of her gaze, and thinks that perhaps they do.

She would see Atlantis, the city of silver and blue and green, filled with humanity's lies and denial, their bigotry and cruelty. Does she truly believe they will take her back after this? Does she think that she and her son will be _acceptable_ to Atlantis, to Earth, to the people who made him what he is with never a thought for what his lot would be?

As he turns away, his soul twists with a bitter wrench. Doubtless they would take her back in a moment.

Michael hopes that the sensations plaguing him - of identity, of belonging, of being - are her bane as well.

But he doubts it.

In the end, no matter the hiveship and her being, no matter the dreams in which she makes him human in body and in bed - in the end, she is one of _them_, too.

--

Sifting through the data brought to him by nearly a hundred orbital units set in the atmospheres of as many planets is no small task. Teyla does not trust him to access the information without supervision, so Michael does his work at the console in her throne quarters, watched by drones and workers alike.

He lets them watch. They do not know what he knows; what they see is nearly useless to them.

Information strings flow past him, the flavour of their data leaving traces in his mind. He explains what he is doing to the Queen and, through her, to the listening audience.

"Part of the change I made in your people was an adjustment to their DNA."

"The Lanteans removed the markers." Her voice is cool, her trust in the work of her allies absolute.

"Most of them. Almost all, in fact." A cause for Michael to curse once he reached his consoles and realised that all his careful planning had come to nothing. "With one exception."

Almost nothing.

She does not even need a heartbeat to see what he has done. "Kanaan's gift."

"Your gifts are rare, and in that rarity, traceable. I was on my way to find him when you caught me." An inner amusement touches his lips. "An error on my part. I did not expect your present guise."

Teyla is tense with the news, focused. "You have found him?"

"Almost."

Michael picks out the relevant streams of information and weaves them together to make another query, sending it out into his network. He knows that the Lanteans accessed his files; knows that they found the uppermost layers. But only a fool leaves his secrets lying where they may be found.

He is no fool.

They wait for the answer to come back, and when it does, Michael's mouth twitches in satisfaction. More than he expected, the situation is what he hoped for.

--

Kanaan of Athos turns wildly in the circle of light that contains him. His eye fixes on the shadows where Michael stands, and when Michael steps into the light, the man's breath catches.

Only the Lanteans have seen who he was as a human: Michael Kenmore, of Texas, USA, with a family who was a lie, and a name taken from a Scottish calendar. But Kanaan of Athos recognises him, even in human skin, and the air is suddenly thick with his fear.

"You!"

"You should have heeded better to my call. I went to a lot of trouble to find you."

"But I... I..."

"Did you believe I did not know you would run when I called? Did you think there is anywhere in your mind that I would not know?" Michael paces in the shadows beyond the light, beyond the Athosian man's reach. "I gave you what you have. I made you what you are."

His backbone stiffens, his body tenses. "I was born what I am. And Teyla and I shared a connection long before you were made what you are."

"Perhaps." Michael smiles. "And yet, Teyla was content with the Lanteans. Content never to see you standing in her shadow, never realising what you would offer her."

Hands fist, the knuckles falling into shadows. Yet Kanaan of Athos contains himself, as he contained his interest in Teyla for so long. And so Michael found him fertile ground for prompting - a move that the Athosian man would never have otherwise made.

"My son is not for your use," declares the human. "Teyla will find him..."

His voice trails off as Teyla steps out of the shadows, and her hands slide over Michael's shoulders. The contact is human rather than Wraith, but the audience for which this play is intended is human rather than Wraith.

It is a dream, nothing more. They are within a half-cycle of the planet, and this meeting of minds will serve Michael's purposes well enough.

He is the one in control, now.

Kanaan of Athos had his uses; as father to Teyla's child, as aide on Michael's hiveship, as the unknowing keeper of the child Michael created for his use. "You are no longer necessary. A useful tool, but not one worth keeping."

The Athosian does not seem to hear him; his eyes are wholly on the woman who is his past, his present, and his future.

"Teyla..."

The vision of Teyla doesn't answer his beseeching; speech isn't necessary for this pretence. And now that Michael knows where the child is, neither is Kanaan of Athos.

--

Her tension infects the drones and warriors who accompany her to the surface.

Michael alone is unruffled by her mood. Humanity is insulation as well as isolation. But he watches the faces of the locals, pale and troubled, some eyes defiant, others filled with a delicate loathing for the Wraith who walk among them.

They do not know what is coming, what she desires. They see only a Queen and her entourage.

Teyla stalks through the villagers, seeking a man and a child. The chill wind tugs at her hair, as her gaze slides across men and women, and doesn't find the ones she seeks. When she turns at the end of the row, her gaze slams through Michael like a sharp-edge, and the force of her fury sends the mothers clutching their children.

She can't see into his mind; he can block her out of his thoughts with practise and training and accustomed solitude. He has learned to live outside the hive; he does not need to open up to even a Queen.

Especially not when he dream-walked into Kanaan of Athos' mind, taunted him with Michael's intimacy with the woman he loved, and burned out the man's mind.

The villagers would count it an unfortunate death.

To Michael, it is merely expediency.

He gave Kanaan of Athos everything; it was his right to take it away.

Even if Teyla might disagree.

"Where is he?"

Michael opens his mouth to declaim innocence, but a burble interrupts him.

Teyla turns, and her gaze rests upon a young woman who holds a restless toddler in her arms - the only child among the villagers without fear.

"_Give me my son_!"

The village gasps. The woman steps back.

But the child she carries tilts his head at the approaching Queen, then throws out his arms in greeting and welcome. And Teyla gathers her fearless son into her arms, and her lips curve into a smile no Queen ever bestowed upon her children as the boy touches her face with curiosity and wonder.

Satisfaction is fierce as the release he feels in Teyla's arms, in the intimacy between human female and human male, so like and unlike the intimacy of Queen and Wraith. The child Michael brought into existence is within his grasp, and so is Teyla. His hooks are in place on the ship, to give him control of the hive. All it will take is a little cunning, a little planning, and he will have everything he wants.

He has given her his son, and she will give him not only his life, but also the lives of all those in her galaxy.

Michael will have his revenge on them all - even Teyla.

Over by the villagers, she is turning towards him, and he draws himself out of his thoughts, expecting to be commanded to move out from the village.

Sharp and clear on the crisp air, the meaning of the two shots unfolds only when he feels the leaden slugs burn in his chest.

It only takes one betrayal.

--

He is sprawled among the sheets of her bed, as he has sprawled after many other interludes.

This time is different.

She sits beside him, a wrap hanging off her shoulders as her fingers trace his skin. And there is a grimness in her eyes that holds none of the hot desire with which she seduced him.

"You promised me my life," he manages through the burning fire of his chest and belly. He can feel the trickling ooze of blood across bare flesh, the inching agony that is breathing. Two shots are not enough to kill him, he has taken more and survived; but the pain is considerable.

"You took Kanaan's," Teyla says, and her voice burns with cold even as her knuckles brush his cheekbone.

"He stood in my way."

"As you stand in the way of my son's future."

"Did you ever plan to let me live?"

She does not answer; but her fingers brush his lips - a soft trace across a warm mouth. The caress is cool amidst the fire, a human gesture.

"Did you..." he pauses. There is no term for it in Wraith, no concept for personal attachment. A Wraith is of the hive, and the hive is made of Wraith, plurality in unity. A Wraith does what his Queen requires of him, his duty; affection is a human emotion.

Atlantis tried to make him human; perhaps they succeeded, after all.

"In my own way," Teyla murmurs. "You were what I needed; as I was what you wanted."

Her mouth descends on his and if there is humanity in the soft cling of moist lip to moist lip, there is the cool collection of the Queen in her breaking off the kiss.

"They will never understand you or your son."

"No," she agrees. "But that is not your concern."

He feels her hand over his heart - the left hand, the feeding hand - then the agony of his chest and belly is unbearable, and Michael is swallowed up into the deadly beauty of his Queen.

"_Betrayal is the only truth that sticks_."  
-- Arthur Miller --

- **fin** -


End file.
